It was a beautiful morning. The first half of the journey was by motorway (M55 and M6), heading north through the sunny uplands of Lancashire and Cumbria. The next part by contrast was across the spine of rural England heading east through spritely green dales and hills dotted with ancient market towns (Kirkby Stephen, Brough, Bowes, Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland), much of it along the route of an old Roman road.
Along that eastward leg of the journey I encountered scores of Roma and traveller folk on their way to next week's annual Appleby Horse Fair. There were modern motorised homes, land rovers pulling horse boxes, caravans towed by cars and quite a few traditional 'gypsy' horse drawn caravans (see below) making the journey, which slowed us motorists to a sedate pace through the Eden valley. There was plenty of opportunity therefore to observe caravans parked on grass verges, with tethered horses cropping contentedly by the sides of the road.
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| Horse drawn caravan, Eden Valley |
I'm supposing that horse-riding and then horse-drawn or oxen-drawn carts/wagons must have been among the earliest forms of transport on land. Water borne hollowed out logs may have preceded land travel, but I'd need to check dates and I'm short of time this evening.
I did, however, dip into a brief bit of online research about the speed of horse and carriage transport back in the day. It was heavily dependent om the number and quality of horses and the state of the roads. That drive took me just over two and a half hours in my 75bph (brake horse power) Vauxhall. If I had undertaken the same journey with a single horse and carriage it would have taken several days to transport myself from Blackpool to Durham, with rest time and refuelling for the horses. No wonder all those ancient market towns had splendid coaching inns and hotels and ostlers (my word of the week).
...which was the point of departure for this latest poem (obviously a first take and likely to undergo revision when time allows). For those who didn't know, Hellas (Ελλάς) is both the ancient and modern name in Greek for what we call Greece
Inevitably, given the beautiful weather today (at the end of a splendid and unseasonably hot May week), and with transport being in mind, my thoughts strayed to a holiday. It won't surprise you to hear that Greece is calling, later this year and still to be finalised of course (depending on football fixtures and middle east wars). I quite like the idea of Naxos. Never been, though we have sailed past it on more than one occasion.
Blackpool to Durham is only 125 miles. Blackpool to Naxos is about 1,750 miles. By my rough reckoning, that would take nearly three months by horse and carriage...unless the horse was Pegasus and could fly...
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| Naxos Airport, Greece |
Flight To Hellas
Welcome aboard this evening's
Pegasus Airways flight to Hellas.
My name is Artemisia
and it will be my pleasure
to look after you
on our journey tonight.
The prevailing wind here
is westerly, so we will shortly
be taking off into the setting sun
before heading down Bretagne,
passing over Stonehenge
and crossing into Gaul.
In the hours of darkness
we will be winging south-east
over Helvetia, Etruria and Illyria,
then starting our descent
over Macedonia
before touching down in Hellas
just as rosy dawn is breaking.
Settle back, fasten your seatbelts
and prepare for departure.
Once we are airborne
I will bring refreshments
of ambrosia and nectar,
distribute cloud pillows
and dream blankets
and update you
on flying conditions over Europa,
which are currently set fair.
On behalf of Captain Bellerophon
and Pegasus Airways
I wish you all a pleasant flight.
Thanks for reading, S ;-)
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